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Tuesday, November 04, 2014

Part 1 - Product - Designing, Selling and Manufacturing with Angie Spurgeon of Artwork by Angie

A lot of designers realise at some point in their career that they have to stick their fingers into rather a few pies in order to make any money. We can all design and may be pretty savvy at licensing our designs, but have you ever dreamed about physically having your designs manufactured onto a product and selling it yourself? If so, then you are going to love this series of blogs which are all about how to design to sell, how to manufacture your idea and finally how and where to sell it.We have an amazing set of designer interviews for you over the next couple of weeks, so I hope you can pop in when you can. So, grab a notebook and lets start making those dreams come true shall we?! Kicking off the blog series we have the lovely Angie Spurgeon from Artwork by Angie.

If you'd like to read the other wonderful blogs in this series, please click on the links below.

1. Could you tell us a little background about yourself and why you decided to sell
product?
I’ve always loved drawing, painting and making paper stuff ever since I can
remember. Throughout school I was consistently saying I wanted to go to
art college to study ‘drawing’. I got my degree in Graphic Design
(illustration) in the early 90s, which prepared me well for drawing, developing
concepts and visually communicating them, BUT I personally felt I was not well
prepared for entering the big wide world of business to try to find work in my
chosen area of study. After a while I came to terms with this and got a
job in an advertising agency and worked my way up from the bottom in client
services. This ‘temporary’ advertising career lasted around 12 years and
provided me with a reasonable lifestyle. Most importantly though, it
taught me 3 very important lessons:

Lesson 1I LOVE drawing – working as a ‘suit’ in an advertising agency
was never really my dream.
Lesson 2All that mysterious business stuff I didn't know about when I
left Uni on how to survive in a creative industry was no longer such a mystery.
Lesson 3There is more to life than putting profit in someone else’s pocket
whilst sacrificing your precious free time – particularly when that time could
have been spent creating something that you find deeply fulfilling and moves
you closer towards the life of your dreams.

So, I went freelance as a graphic designer when my children came along.
At first it was on a very ad hoc basis, only taking on very occasional projects
to tick by whilst my babies were little. I have two daughters and being a
stay at home mum has always been my priority. By the time my youngest
daughter began nursery I was ready to fling myself into my business and really
wanted to launch my own range of illustrative paper products. It all
began with my first range of prints and greetings cards which I launched on a
blog, website, facebook page and Folksy shop.

2. What are the important things to keep in mind when
researching the products you wish to sell and why did you choose the particular products that
you sell now?

Good question! I’d say identifying an idea which satisfies a demand would be
the best place to start. Whether it’s personalising an item or creating
it in a particular colourway, theme, for a specific occasion, or making it say
something different – it’s most important to try to come up with something
original, new and desirable. Without having any sense that there’s a need
or desire for an item, there’s not much point exploring costs and once you have
a sense that there’s a market for your item, then the next important factor is
price as that will be the deciding factor. You need to be aware of the
general price of similar items to ensure you’re competitive.Then it’s a case
of trying to get your cost price in at a level that gives you sufficient margin
for wholesale and retail without losing out on quality. Even if you don’t
think wholesale is for you, if you don’t allow for wholesale in your pricing,
you rule out an extremely good way of growing and sustaining your business. Also, when
working out the cost price of your product, always ensure you have made
allowance for time and overheads. There are some great formulas out there
to help you do this - I find Etsy’s seller blog is a brilliant resource for
finding this sort of useful information. Also, Folksy has some great
articles on their blog too – my advice is subscribe to both and read and learn.

3. Which has been the most effective avenue for you to sell
your products and which would you
recommend?

Social media has played a crucial role in helping me sell products as it has
enabled me to grow a good following and get to know many of my followers and
loyal customers well. I really enjoy catching up them and I’ve genuinely
made some lovely new friendships as a result of it. Also, having a
combination of places that people can opt to buy my products from helps too.

I sell my designs in few different ways. I have my own website shop in
which I tend to stock a bit of everything in and it has a section which gives
details to those interested in wholesale items. I license my designs to a
publishing company I work very closely with - they take my designs to trade
shows and sell them into high street buyers. They also handle any
wholesale orders for my greetings cards as they produce practically all of my
card designs. For all the other items I create, I handle the wholesale
myself, but I only really have a handful of stockists that I do that for at the
moment. I also have a Folksy, Etsy, Society 6 shop and I’ve just opened a
shiny new Bespo shop. With those sort of marketplaces, I find sales come
as a result of the social media promotion you give each item. You really
do have to put the work in to direct people to where they can buy. Some
people naturally prefer one shop/marketplace over another, so my philosophy is to give them that choice – that seems to work well for me.*FOLKSY - UK selling platform

4. How important is having a business mentor (if you use one) How have they
helped you grow your business?

I’m not sure I have a business mentor as such. I do think it’s very
important to surround yourself with supportive people. I’m very lucky to
have a support network of very patient and understanding family and
friends. They understand my vision and what I’m trying to achieve out of
life. They give me a lot of support, freedom, broad shoulders to cry on,
kicks up the bum, cups of tea and lots of love and kindness just when I need it
most. Likewise, I always try and give support and kindness too wherever I
feel it is needed, as I never take anything for granted and firmly believe you
get back what you give.

5.How important do you think selling platforms like FOLKSY are? How important have these selling platforms been in pushing your sales
forward?

Sites like Folksy and Etsy are important as they have their own followers, if
you can manage to get an item featured or clearly visible on their sites, it
makes a big difference to your own following and sales. Folksy has played
a very special part in my own story. The publisher I currently work with
for all my greetings cards discovered my designs in my Folksy shop and
initially contacted me directly thorough my Folksy inbox. Without having
my work on there to be seen, I may never have ended up with my work stocked in
places like National Trust shops and Waterstones.

6. How much has wholesaling and licensing been a part of
your success?

My wholesaling set up is split between items I handle myself and items that the
publishing company I work with handles on a licensing arrangement. That
has been a vital part of the growth of my business and an area where I can see
that more significant growth is achievable. However, I’d be keen to stick
more with the licensing side rather than to scale up handling lots of wholesale
myself because personally, for me the joy is found in drawing and creating, not
so much in order packing and fulfilment. At the end of the day, it has to
be about the joy of it all and licensing seems to me to be the best way to
afford the time to create the stuff I love to design.

7. Looking back, what would you do differently if you were to start all over
again?

If I was to start over again with the benefit of hindsight, I’d be less fearful
of social media. In the beginning I felt very timid about sharing my work
online – it was a BIG deal for me to put it out there & I was totally out
of my comfort zone. Thank goodness I did post my designs to facebook,
Folksy, pinterest, twitter, set up a website and blog as I’ve gained so much
because of that.

8. Any extra tips and advice for budding designers who want to sell
their own product?

Take your time to produce good, original work and then get it out there to be
seen. It really helps if you hone and develop a very unique and
recognisable signature style to stand apart. The most important thing is
the quality of the product, so don’t be in a rush. The majority of
products are bought out of desire rather than need these days (let’s face it,
what do we genuinely really ‘need’?). So with that in mind, it’s always
worth remembering that to make something desirable takes lots of time and
effort.
Once you have your product design and have worked out a good price (which
covers all costs and allows for wholesale as well as retail margin) – then
don’t be shy, get out there and show people. Put yourself around on
social media – please come and say hello to me. (see all social media links above)

9. What's next in your product selling business plan?

At the moment, I'm developing a stack of new occasions cards designs to fill
the gap in my occasions range. I've also been working on some products to
extend my general stationery collection which include planners and a 2015
calendar. Going into next year, I’ve some ideas for new collections I’d
like to develop am really looking forward to getting stuck into those designs

Thanks so much Angie. We wish you all
the very best for the future! Stay tuned for the next instalment in this series on Friday 7th with Gabriella Buckingham of MooBaaCluck!

If you have any comments, we would love to hear from you. Please
comment below

Hello, we are the Benyon family, living the simple life in Sandbach, a lovely, small countryside village in Cheshire. More than anything we love hill walking with Dougal our dog, getting out and about in the stunning local countryside.

5 comments:

What a great interview, I've come to a point in my career after spending many years working for other companies, I feel ready to take the leap into my product development,I am slowly building my range and it's good to read that it's working for you Angie! Thank you Ali for posting :)

Thanks for giving me the opportunity to share my work on your blog Ali - I really enjoy reading your interviews and am looking forward to reading the next ones in this series, you've got some great people lined up. Kaz, I'm so glad you found this blog post helpful - creating that first product range was a big scary step, but it has been so worthwhile so I don't hesitate in encouraging you to go for it!. I wish you all the best with the launch of your range. :)

So glad you enjoyed reading the post Kaz. You'll really enjoy the whole series I think! Thanks Angie, I really appreciate all the time and effort you have put into this post. It's jam packed full of tips. Thanks again - Ali xx

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Hello, we are the Benyon family, living the simple life in Sandbach, a lovely, small countryside village in Cheshire. More than anything we love hill walking with Dougal our dog, getting out and about in the stunning local countryside.